The present invention pertains generally to systems and methods for displaying representations of weather phenomena over maps of geographic locations for televised weather presentations, and the like, and computer-based systems and methods for preparing and manipulating such displays including systems and methods for tracking and displaying the expected the future path of such weather phenomena.
Various systems and methods have been developed for providing viewers of broadcast and cable television weather presentations with informative and accurate weather information. Typically, such systems provide a display of representations of weather phenomena, e.g., clouds, rain, storms, etc., overlaid on a map of a geographical area of interest. Such displays were originally created by drawing representations of weather phenomena, or placing pre-made weather phenomena symbols, on a physical map of an area of interest. The image of the map was then broadcast to viewers, usually with a weather presenter positioned in front of the map to provide an explanation of the map display. Computer systems are now employed to facilitate the generation of weather displays, using computer-generated graphics and animation.
A typical computer-implemented system for preparing a weather presentation will include detailed digital maps of geographic areas of interest stored for access by the computer. Weather information, such as satellite imagery and/or weather radar information, such as NEXRAD weather radar information provided by the government or live local radar data, is provided to the system. The system scales the received weather information, which is then overlaid on the digital maps to create a graphic display of the weather for a particular area of interest. The weather information received by the system may be processed to generate weather symbols, color contours, or other representations of the weather information which are overlaid on the digital maps to create the weather display. A series of such weather displays may be generated by the computer system, and played back in sequence to provide an animated image of the movement of weather phenomena through a geographic area. Such systems may provide an operator with various tools for selecting, e.g., the geographic location to be displayed, reference points to be displayed on the geographic map, e.g., cities, roads, borders, etc., the source of weather information to be displayed on the geographic map, e.g., satellite imagery or radar, and how the weather information will be represented, e.g., symbols, color contours, etc.
Using a system as described above, a complete weather display may be prepared in advance for replay and broadcast at a later time as part of a televised weather presentation. In some cases, however, particularly during rapidly developing severe weather conditions, a live xe2x80x9con-airxe2x80x9d weather presenter may desire to alter the weather display in real time during a live weather presentation. For example, a weather presenter may desire to zoom in on particular geographic areas of interest, where severe weather is developing or headed, to provide an instantaneous detailed display of the position of a storm to viewers. Similarly, the weather presenter may desire to alter how weather information is presented, or the type of weather information being presented, during the live presentation, to provide a better real time explanation to the viewers of the weather situation that is developing. Real time changes to a weather display can be presented to viewers by scan converting the operator display output of the system used for preparing the display for broadcast. In such a case, however, broadcast viewers will see all of the manipulations which the weather presenter is performing to alter the display. For example, various menus, keystrokes and mouse inputs, and the like, which are employed by the presenter manipulating the display, will be visible to viewers of the presentation. This results in an unprofessional and distracting presentation. What is desired, therefore, is a system for preparing a weather display which provides a wide range of operator tools and functions for preparing an informative and detailed weather presentation, and which allows rapid manipulation of the weather display by a presenter during a live presentation in a manner so as to enhance the presentation, without distracting the viewer from the information being provided by the weather presentation.
The most useful television weather presentations provide viewers not only with information on the past and present position of weather phenomena, but also with a prediction of the future path of certain weather of interest. For example, viewers are very interested in knowing if and when a developing storm is likely to reach their location. The weather information received by a system for preparing a weather display, as described above, includes information which may be used to provide such a prediction. For example, NEXRAD weather radar information, employed by many such systems, includes a detailed xe2x80x9cstorm attributesxe2x80x9d table, which defines storm cells, and provides detailed characteristics of such cells, such as the direction and speed of movement of such cells and whether such cells contain elements such as hail or tornadoes. This information may be used by the system for providing a display to viewers of when a particular storm cell is expected to reach a particular location, and the contents of the storm cell. What is desired is a system which allows an operator manually or automatically to employ such information to generate a display of the predicted path of movement of severe weather, including a display of when a particular weather condition is expected to reach a particular location.
Government-provided NEXRAD radar data includes detailed information on storm cells, including detailed information on the characteristics of the cells, including their speed and direction of movement, contents (e.g., hail or tornadoes), etc. This detailed information is obtained by the NEXRAD radar system by performing a volumetric radar scan of the atmosphere. NEXRAD radar systems are very expensive, costing millions of dollars, and the physical process of scanning the atmosphere as well as the computing process of deriving detailed weather information from the scan take relatively long to complete. A weather tracking and display system can expect to receive updated NEXRAD weather information no more often than every six (6) minutes. Existing systems which provide a display of the location and predicted path of movement of severe weather based on NEXRAD data only provide an update of the display when updated NEXRAD data is received by the system, i.e., every six (6) minutes or so. Such a display does not reflect the continuous movement of the storm cell between NEXRAD updates. What is desired, therefore, is a system which updates the position of NEXRAD storm cell attributes between NEXRAD updates.
Furthermore, the speed and direction of movement of a severe weather cell can change significantly during the relatively long period between NEXRAD updates. Thus, the predicted track of a storm cell will become increasingly inaccurate between NEXRAD updates if NEXRAD information alone is relied upon to determine the predicted track of a storm cell. Local or remote live radar systems perform a much more rapid scan of the atmosphere, and are, therefore, able to provide more up-to-the-minute information on the current location of a severe storm weather cell. Since such live radar systems are significantly less expensive than NEXRAD radar systems (costing tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars), many television news and weather operations have their own live local radar systems, in addition to access to government provided NEXRAD data. However, live radar does not provide the detailed information regarding the attributes of storm cells which is provided by NEXRAD. Current weather tracking and display systems allow an operator to display NEXRAD radar information overlaid on a map of a geographic location, and to display live radar data overlaid on the same map. In such a display scheme, however, there is no interaction or integration of the NEXRAD information with the live radar information. What is desired is a system which integrates weather information from different sources, such as NEXRAD and live radar data, into a single weather display in such a manner as to improve the ability of a weather tracking and display system to predict and display the path of a severe weather cell and, e.g., the arrival time of such a cell at particular geographic locations.
The present invention provides a system and method for preparing and manipulating a weather display including accurately displaying the current position of detailed weather storm cell information and predicting and displaying the future path of a weather storm cell. A weather tracking and display system in accordance with the present invention provides various operator tools and functions in a graphical user interface which allow an operator to prepare a weather display for broadcast, and to manipulate the display during a live weather presentation. The system and method of the present invention provides for accurately displaying the current position of detailed weather storm cell information and predicting and displaying the future path of the cell. Accurate storm cell path prediction and display is provided by updating the displayed position of detailed NEXRAD weather cell information between NEXRAD updates, and, more particularly, by integration of detailed NEXRAD weather radar information with live radar data to provide an enhanced ability to predict accurately the movement of severe weather cells and to provide an accurate warning to those in the path of such cells.
A weather tracking and display system in accordance with the present invention may be implemented in software on a conventional commercially available computer system. The system may receive weather information from various sources, such as storm warning information from the National Weather Service weather wire (typically provided as an input to a WxWarn system), NEXRAD, live radar data, and satellite imagery. This weather information is combined with vector-based digital map data to provide a high quality weather display. The weather display is presented on an operator display along with graphical user interface tools which allow an operator to manipulate the display. The weather display thus generated may be saved or broadcast live as part of a live television weather presentation. The weather display may be broadcast in a manner such that the graphical user interface tools and manipulations employed by the operator to manipulate the display during a live presentation are not visible to viewers of the presentation.
Various graphical user interface operator tools may be provided on the system operator display to allow an operator of the system to manipulate the display view. A layer list graphical user interface is provided on the operator display to allow an operator of the system to select the geographical elements which will be displayed on the map displayed in the display window. A label interface allows an operator of the system to label interactively map elements displayed in the weather display. Information on the map view currently displayed in the display window is provided by the user interface. The user interface allows the operator to define the geographical position and scale of the map view, and to save such a view as a preset view for easy recall using the graphical user interface or a keyboard. Other graphical user interface tools allow an operator to zoom in, zoom out, and return to a home position in the map view. The display of the map presented in the weather display window preferably includes display filtering associated therewith, which determines at which map scale specific geographic features will be displayed. Navigated banners, logos, symbols, and other cut-outs may be positioned on the map based on latitude and longitude such that, even though the scale and/or position of the map view is changed, the cut-outs will remain positioned on the map in the proper geographic location.
A weather tracking and display system in accordance with the present invention preferably provides for both manual and automatic storm cell tracking and display. Either a manual or automatic storm cell tracking mode may be entered into from the graphical user interface. In manual tracking mode, an operator of the system draws a storm line on a map in a weather display window, and direction lines indicating the direction and speed of movement of the storm line. In automatic tracking mode, the operator selects storm cells to be tracked from NEXRAD information presented on the weather display or in a storm table. Alternatively, or additionally, the NEXRAD storm cells to be tracked in automatic tracking mode may be selected automatically when characteristics of the storm cells satisfy certain preselected criteria. The system may automatically generate a marker at the current location of the storm cell, and a track display, such as tracking wedge, indicating the speed and direction of movement of the characteristics of the selected cell, based initially on the cell location, speed, direction, and other information available in the NEXRAD storm attributes table. In accordance with the present invention, the position and predicted track display of the storm characteristics may be updated between the receipt of NEXRAD data updates based, for example, on live radar storm position information. The detailed information describing other characteristics of the cell is updated each time new NEXRAD information is received.
Whether in automatic or manual tracking mode, the weather tracking and display system displays a window which contains a list of cities in the predicted path of a storm, and the estimated arrival time, or countdown time to impact, of a storm line or storm cell at selected cities. Each city included in the list is preferably highlighted in the correct geographic position on the weather display.
To improve tracking prediction accuracy, the displayed position and predicted track of a storm cell whose characteristics are defined by detailed NEXRAD information is updated between the receipt of NEXRAD information. This may be accomplished by updating the displayed storm cell position, and advancing the position of the NEXRAD storm attributes and predicted track display, periodically between NEXRAD updates, e.g., every minute, based on storm direction and speed of movement information contained in the latest available NEXRAD information itself. Preferably, however, the position of the NEXRAD defined storm cell and predicted track display are advanced by the system using live radar information.
In accordance with the present invention, a selected storm cell defined by detailed NEXRAD information is automatically correlated or linked to the same storm cell whose position is determined by live radar information. This may be accomplished by, for example, time synchronizing the latest available NEXRAD information with corresponding live radar data, and then analyzing the live radar data to locate storm activity therein which most likely corresponds to a selected NEXRAD storm cell. For example, the live radar image may be analyzed to locate the area of high intensity activity nearest to the time synchronized location of the selected NEXRAD storm cell. This area of high intensity is then linked or correlated to the NEXRAD defined storm cell. Each time a live radar scans the storm cell, a new location of the storm cell is determined. The position of the detailed NEXRAD defined attributes of the storm cell may thus be advanced to the new position using the live radar data. A new predicted track display, e.g., arrow or tracking wedge, is then generated and displayed, extending from this updated location, using the attributes for the storm cell as provided by the NEXRAD storm attributes table. Alternatively, the live radar information may also be used to update the speed and direction of movement of the displayed storm cell. Thus, live radar information may also be used to adjust the track display, thereby providing for a more accurate cell position and predicted track display. In this manner, the locations and storm cell characteristics (e.g., intensities) provided for a storm cell in a NEXRAD storm attributes table are advanced along a predicted line between NEXRAD updates using the speed and direction of movement of the storm cell as determined from a live radar source. Thus, the present invention provides for improved accurate location and tracking of storm cells using integrated NEXRAD and live radar data by taking advantage of the best characteristics of each system, namely, detailed storm characteristics provided by NEXRAD and timely accurate location updates provided by live radar.
Further objects, features, and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.